AALF Mega-review for May 7, 2018

[stephenhongsohn]

AALF Mega-review for May 7, 2018

To begin, as per usual, I note that AALF uses maximal ideological inclusiveness (following Colleen Lye’s conception of this term) to define Asian American literature. Thus, we review any writers working in the English language of Asian descent. We also review titles related to Asian American contexts without regard to authorial descent. We also consider titles in translation pending their relationship to America, broadly defined. Our point is precisely to cast the widest net possible.

With apologies as always for any typographical, grammatical, or factual errors. My intent in these reviews is to illuminate the wide-ranging and expansive terrain of Asian American and Asian Anglophone literatures. Please e-mail ssohnucr@gmail.com with any concerns you may have.

In this post, reviews of:

(1) Shobha Rao’s Girls Burn Brighter (Flatiron Books, 2018).

(2) Clarissa Goenawan’s Rainbirds (Soho Press, 2018).

(3) Meika Hashimoto’s The Trail (Scholastic, 2017).

(4) Mary H.K. Choi’s Emergency Contact (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018).

(5) An Na’s The Place Between Breaths (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books (March 27, 2018)

(6) Chandra Prasad’s Damselfly (Scholastic Press, 2018)

(7) Flora Ahn’s Pug Pals: Two’s a Crowd (Scholastic Press, 2018).

A Review of Shobha Rao’s Girls Burn Brighter (Flatiron Books, 2018).

Well, this novel is yet another relentlessly depressing, but wonderfully written work. After Shobha Rao’s truly stellar story collection, I had expected much from her debut novel Girls Burn Brighter (Flatiron Books, 2018). Girls Burn Brighter certainly does not disappoint, but it’s also not for the faint of heart. I’ve already read some other reviews that castigate the work for flatness of the male characters and for being melodramatic, but I don’t think these critiques do much to contextualize the fact that Rao isn’t just creating a fictional world. Perhaps, that’s what is so weighty about having to read this work: you realize it’s not entirely imaginary. So let’s let B&N provide us with some background at this point: “Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them: they are poor, they are ambitious, and they are girls. After her mother’s death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to care for her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match. So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond arranged marriage. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face ruthless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within.” The survival instinct that each possesses is certainly the reason why both Poornima and Savitha manage to even make it to the novel’s conclusion. The amount of abuse that each endure is hard to describe. In this way, the novel is not unlike something like Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, as you see the utter depravity in which these lives are mired. Poornima’s marriage will be more like a prison sentence, and Savitha will find herself in the darkest bowels of human trafficking. There were times I simply had to pause, put the book away and take a break simply because the narrative trajectory only went further down from a position that I already thought was the nadir. For instance, Savitha, believing that her only way out of the brothel is to be sold off to a rich customer with a penchant for amputees, assents to having one of her hands removed. But, she discovers, after this procedure has already been completed, that the customer has changed his mind and that she will not, in fact, be sold to him. This event is one of a long string of occurrences Savitha faces, as she attempts to find some measure of agency in a world dominated by incredibly abusive men. There is a kind of narrative payoff, if we want to put it that profanely, concerning this kind of contextual darkness: we will want so desperately for Savitha and Poornima to find a way back to each other. There must be a kernel of happiness for these two young women, respectively maimed and burned, but somehow retaining their light of resistance. If there is a question concerning the fictional representation, it is this very spirit of survival that each retains, given how much they must endure. So tortuous was this particular issue that I found myself haunted long after the last, very unclosed page. I looked over at the clock, and it read 3:20 a.m., but I didn’t actually fall asleep until 6:30.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/girls-burn-brighter-shobha-rao/1125902419

A Review of Clarissa Goenawan’s Rainbirds (Soho Press, 2018).

So, this title was one that immediately intrigued based upon marketing descriptions. B&N provides with this engaging passage: “Set in an imagined town outside Tokyo, Clarissa Goenawan’s dark, spellbinding literary debut follows a young man’s path to self-discovery in the wake of his sister’s murder. Ren Ishida has nearly completed his graduate degree at Keio University when he receives news of his sister’s violent death. Keiko was stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister’s affairs, failing to understand why she chose to turn her back on the family and Tokyo for this desolate place years ago. But then Ren is offered Keiko’s newly vacant teaching position at a prestigious local cram school and her bizarre former arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician’s mansion in exchange for reading to the man’s ailing wife. He accepts both, abandoning Tokyo and his crumbling relationship there in order to better understand his sister’s life and what took place the night of her death. As Ren comes to know the eccentric local figures, from the enigmatic politician who’s boarding him to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, captivating young female student, he delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren realizes that Keiko Ishida kept many secrets, even from him.” This description does a decent of giving us the basic background of the story. The work is what we might call a “Tokyo-based” noir, as Ren ultimately becomes a kind of unofficial detective. Goenawan absolutely captures the mood of noir: there is a darkness and quirkiness to the fictional world that makes most characters a possible suspect. One of my problems with mysteries though is that I become absolutely consumed by the whodunit aspect of the plot. I was probably too driven by finding out who had killed Keiko, why she was killed, and how Ren was going to track this killer down. And, here, I’m going to offer up my spoiler warning—so, do not read on unless you want to found out what happens—because Goenawan chooses to deny readers with any sort of reveal. The novel thus seems to be a red herring in a way, more of a meditation on Ren’s desire to find meaning in his life in the wake of his sister’s death. It’s well apparent that he’s been in a number of problematic romantic relationships, and the rupture point related to his sister’s exile from his family provides Ren with a stronger sense of why Keiko felt like she could never return home. The minor characters are quite colorful, especially Goenawan’s construction of a Japenese schoolgirl (named Seven Stars), who functions as a Lolita-type figure and who attempts to broker a kind of seduction of Ren (who himself has become a teacher at her high school). The other eccentric figure is Ren’s first landlord, a politician whose wife has become mute. Ren, in a move that seems a little bit morbid, ends up renting the very room his sister once lived in and even takes on a part-time position at the school she was teaching at. Ren’s shadowy relationship with his sister perhaps reaches its apotheosis when readers discover that he also followed his sister’s footsteps in the pursuit of a degree in literature. But this sort of mirroring is ultimately essential because it gives us a very definitive sense of Ren’s incredible sense of melancholy: it was always his sister who had been his protector, so the quest that ensues is one in which he feels, at least at first, that he can mete out justice, especially if the police cannot find her killer. Though the conclusion leaves a little bit to be desired and the plot ultimately stumbles (at least from my perspective and in relation to the whodunit), Goenawan’s certainly talented as a writer; the novel’s immensely readable, intensely atmospheric.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rainbirds-clarissa-goenawan/1126551443#/

A Review of Meika Hashimoto’s The Trail (Scholastic, 2017).

Meika Hashimoto’s The Trail (Scholastic, 2017) was one that intrigued me because the premised reminded me of some of my most beloved children’s books: E.L. Konigsburg’s The Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler, Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain, Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, and Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Boxcar Children series. When I was a kid, I was absolutely captivated by these stories of children who endured in the wilds or on their own, in one way or another. We’ll let B&N provide us with some basic contextual information: “Toby has to finish the final thing on The List. It's a list of brave, daring, totally awesome things that he and his best friend, Lucas, planned to do together, and the only item left is to hike the Appalachian Trail. But now Lucas isn't there to do it with him. Toby's determined to hike the trail alone and fulfill their pact, which means dealing with the little things -- the blisters, the heat, the hunger -- and the big things -- the bears, the loneliness, and the memories. When a storm comes, Toby finds himself tangled up in someone else's mess: Two boys desperately need his help. But does Toby have any help to give? The Trail is a remarkable story of physical survival and true friendship, about a boy who's determined to forge his own path -- and to survive.” Hashimoto’s middle grade novel is a spirited account of Toby’s quest, but the problem is that he’s decided to complete the previously mentioned List on his own. You might call Hashimoto’s novel the middle grade version of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild, as they both involve someone on a sort of identity-based journey that takes place on the Appalachian Trail. What is so compelling about these narratives are the built-in challenges. For instance, Toby must make certain campsites and shelters before sundown, while battling the elements. In addition, once he loses his water filter, he must figure out a way to acquire potable water. Fortunately, the popularity of the Appalachian Trail is Toby’s best weapon: there are others he meets along the way that inevitably provide him with support. Perhaps, what is most poignant about Hashimoto’s tale is the fact that people on the Appalachian Trail all have their own personal struggles, a fact that becomes evident as Toby journeys further and onward. For Toby, coming to terms with the loss that imbues his life means understanding that others are facing their own versions of the List. In the interactions that Toby has with others, he is able to find the strength to move beyond the literal things on the List and determine that the value is in the spirit of what his friendship to Lucas meant. In this sense, Hashimoto’s work provides young readers with a wonderful lesson.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-trail-meika-hashimoto/1125409452#/

A Review of Mary H.K. Choi’s Emergency Contact (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018).

Work wise, it’s been one of the busiest times of my life! I have mostly been making due with about forty five minutes to an hour of reading time before I fall asleep, so I’m managing to still read two to three new works a week. The latest one I picked off the “to be reviewed” shelf was none other that Mary H.K. Choi’s debut Emergency Contact (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018). Let’s let B&N provide us with some basic contexts: “For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind. Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him. When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.” This description is lacking in many ways. First, it doesn’t articulate that Penny is Korean American and has been raised by a single mother who just happens to be very beautiful, so beautiful in fact that men are constantly trying to date her. Penny’s introverted nature thus stands in stark contrast to her vivacious, pulchritudinous, fashion forward mother. The title is a nod to the fact that Penny and Sam have a random encounter in which she literally bumps into him, while he’s in the middle of having something like a panic attack. Fortunately, Penny is able to remain calm and helps get Sam to the emergency room. Despite the fact that they barely know each other at that point, having only been introduced to each other through Penny’s college roomie Jude (who was also once Sam’s step-niece), they forge a very unique text-based friendship as each other’s titular “emergency contacts.” As they begin to grow ever closer to each other, each character wonders whether or not it’s better to move their friendship into the material sphere, with the possibility that they’d interact with each other in the same time and space (rather than only virtually). But there are some complications: Sam has a girlfriend who has returned, and she’s pregnant! Second, Penny’s unsure of how her roomie Jude will react to the fact that Penny’s able to get more of Sam’s attention than Jude is, a problem insofar as Jude is constantly trying to get Sam to meet up with her just to catch up. But Choi’s greatest asset is not anything related to the plot actually: it’s the third person narrative style, which is absolutely rife with wit and acerbic tonality. I was actually quite surprised by this third person narrative voice, one that sometimes departed from the actual characterizations offered on the page. This particular storyteller is one that is able to make this teen romance transcend some of the more conventional aspects of the courtship plot. In any case, one does wonder about the long-term potential of this partnership between Penny and Sam. As Penny and Sam find themselves inexorably drawn to each other, the cynic in me questions their financial viability in the future. But that’s of course going far beyond what’s provided in this specific narrative, so I’ll attempt to rein in these presumptions about some unscripted tomorrow and hope for the best. That’s, after all, what courtship plots are all about…

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/emergency-contact-mary-h-k-choi/1126511895#/

A Review of An Na’s The Place Between Breaths (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books (March 27, 2018)

This book has been on my to-read list for quite some time, as I am a big fan of An Na’s young adult novel, A Step from Heaven, a rather searing account of a dysfunctional immigrant family. An Na returns to some similar issues and themes in The Place Between Breaths (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books (2018), though perhaps with a little bit less success. We’ll let B&N provide us with some basics, as per usual: “Sixteen-year-old Grace is in a race against time—and in a race for her life—even if she doesn’t realize it yet...She is smart, responsible, and contending with more than what most teens ever should. Her mother struggled with schizophrenia for years until, one day, she simply disappeared—fleeing in fear that she was going to hurt those she cared about most. Ever since, Grace’s father has worked as a recruiter at one of the leading labs dedicated to studying the disease, trying to lure the world’s top scientists to the faculty to find a cure, hoping against hope it can happen in time to help his wife if she is ever found. But this makes him distant. Consumed.

Grace, in turn, does her part, interning at the lab in the gene sequencing department daring to believe that one day they might make a breakthrough...and one day they do. Grace stumbles upon a string of code that could be the key. But something inside of Grace has started to unravel. Could her discovery just be a cruel side effect of the disease that might be taking hold of her? And can she even tell the difference? Unflinchingly brave, An Na has created a mesmerizing story with twists and turns that reveal jaw-dropping insights into the mind of someone struggling with schizophrenia.” Let me start off with some spoilers, because this kind of novel requires an unreliable narrator, so again, please avoid reading ahead unless you want key plot details revealed. At some point, the reader begins to realize the fact that Grace “has started to unravel,” but these moments occur in such a way as to create a large amount of confusion. At various points, I actually had to read and re-read earlier sections to get a handle on what was going on. To a certain extent, you have to applaud Na for going all the way with her depiction of mental illness, but the experience has some obvious risks, as it ultimately causes the narrative to lose logical coherence. On the one hand, you get why this coherence cannot be sustained, but on the other, the reader is just plain confused. At one point, Grace’s father is alive, then he’s dead. The gap in between one moment and another can be abrupt, so the challenge becomes finding the right balance between verisimilitude and the reader’s sense of equanimity. At some point, it might have been useful for Na to consider another narrative perspective, perhaps a third person that moves us outside the incredibly chaotic world offered up by Grace’s schizophrenic interiority. After having read Mira T. Lee’s Everything Here is Beautiful, which treads the same ground, I would have appreciated the occasional reprieve from the tumult of that undulating interiority. Perhaps, the most intriguing element to this narrative is the laboratory culture. There is a sense of a pecking order and a larger political agenda around specific research teams and their valuable projects. From Grace’s point of view, the concern remains the desire to help find a cure or at least some sort of useful psychopharmacological therapy for those suffering from schizophrenia. But at some point, it becomes quite clear that the hope is not that these laboratory breakthroughs will help someone like Grace’s mother but that Grace herself may be in need of such medical advancements. Na must obviously be applauded for taking on such a difficult topic and presenting it with such aesthetic force, but the reading experience is not for the faint of heart. Expect to be occasionally lost.

Buy the Book here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-place-between-breaths-an-na/1124742612

A Review of Chandra Prasad’s Damselfly (Scholastic Press, 2018)

I haven’t read a book penned by Chandra Prasad since Death of the Circus, published out of the cool indie press Red Hen. She’s also the author of On Borrowed Wings and Breathe the Sky as well as an anthology based upon the creative work of mixed race writers (called Mixed, of course). We’ll start off with the editorial description offered by B&N: “Their survival is in their own hands... Samantha Mishra opens her eyes and discovers she's alone and injured in the thick of a jungle. She has no idea where she is, or what happened to the plane taking her and the rest of the Drake Rosemont fencing team across the Pacific for a tournament. Once Sam connects with her best friend, Mel, and they find the others, they set up shelter and hope for rescue. But as the days pass, the teens realize they're on their own, stranded on an island with a mysterious presence that taunts and threatens them. Soon Sam and her companions discover they need to survive more than the jungle... they need to survive each other. This taut novel, with a setting evocative of Lord of the Flies, is by turns cinematic and intimate, and always thought-provoking.” I’m glad I didn’t read this overview before diving into the novel because I would have been unduly influenced by the comparison to Lord of the Flies. In any case, the description mentions that not everyone from the plane actually survives. Two of the their teammates are found dead; the pilot is also presumed to have been killed, though only parts of his body can be located. The gruesome beginning segues into a survival narrative, as the high schoolers must find a way to live off of the land. Fortunately, Mel has some experience backpacking and camping, and they use her know-how to find food, build shelter, and even make a fire. But internal fissures begin to form between the queen B character and mean girl, Rittika, as well as her posse, which are comprised of her twin brother Rish; Chester,;as well as her b-girl squad comprised of Avery and Betty. On the other side, there’s the heroic Pablo, the withdrawn and artistic Anne Marie and of course Sam and her bestie Mel. Tensions begin to rise when the crew discovers that they are not alone on the island and believe that they may be in danger. The problems get multiplied when Rittika actively attempts to usurp Mel’s leadership, while using her charisma to rally her followers to ostracize Anne Marie. Prasad has got an iron grip on the right tonality for this narrative; you can’t help but finish the work in one sitting. The one gripe I had, at least from my own personal response to the characters, was that I found Rittika’s attitude to be incredibly one-note. I couldn’t help but root against her, and I desperately desired some more complex motivation for her. At one point, she seems to espouse openly supremacist viewpoints, trying to institute the importance of the goldens—that is, those of mixed and racially different backgrounds—over the pales, the white-identified characters. It was very difficult to find any redeeming qualities to her. In any case, the narrative concludes in an extremely unsatisfying manner. After reading the last chapter, I desperately searched online to find out if there was going to be a sequel. Indeed, it became obvious that in the final pages, there would be no way for Prasad to wrap things up, but as of April 10, 2018, there are no listings for another in what could be a longer series. In any case, you’ll be riveted, which is perhaps the important thing.

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/damselfly-chandra-prasad/1125912780

A Review of Flora Ahn’s Pug Pals: Two’s a Crowd (Scholastic Press, 2018).

So, this title is one of those works that are aimed for the “middle grade” crowd, which are readers 7-10 years old. I always have difficulty finding many texts penned by Asian American writers for this audience. The tendency is either to write (and illustrate in some cases) for ages below (kindergarten and preschool age) or above (young adult and the teen groups). It was thus a real pleasure to read (and review) Flora Ahn’s Pug Pals: Two’s a Crowd (Scholastic Press, 2018), especially because I love dogs. I always joke that I don’t actually get a dog because I worry that I’ll never interact with any other humans again haha (all time thus being spent with the adorable pooch). In any case, let’s let B&N give us the general overview: “Two pugs. One beloved toy bunny. What could go wrong? Sunny's new little sister, Rosy, is getting her paws into everything. When Rosy takes Sunny's favorite toy, Mr. Bunny, and loses him, Sunny is barking mad. But when Rosy sets off on her own to find and rescue Mr. Bunny, Sunny starts to worry. Rosy's never been outside by herself before. Sunny will have to gather all the canine courage she has and go after them -- before Rosy and Mr. Bunny are both lost fur-ever!” This description does gloss over the fact that the two pugs initially do not get along. Sunny doesn’t want to share her home space with any other pug. So, at first, Sunny acts a little bit distant and cold to Rosy, perhaps secretly hoping she won’t have to share her “humans.” So when Rosy does lose Mr. Bunny, Sunny has yet another reason to wish Rosy wasn’t around. Ahn stages a major plotting pivot once Rosy disappears: Sunny realizes that she’s tasked with overseeing Rosy and must take this responsibility seriously. What I thought was especially ingenious about how this work resolves is that it flips the script between humans and their pets. In this case, it is Rosy and Sunny who come to the rescue of a human, as they realize that Mr. Bunny might be needed by someone else. The rather heartwarming message will be a delight to the young readers it targets, who I can imagine might be perusing this illustrated work right next to their own pooch. On another note, I also really enjoyed the adorable pug cartoons that Ahn uses to help scaffold the story. There’s a way in which Ahn absolutely excels at giving the pug faces an emotional register that perfectly captures a given mood that was being conveyed through the text. The title suggests that Ahn’s work is going to be a series, so we’ll look forward to the next in the Pug Pals series!

Buy the Book Here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/twos-a-crowd-flora-ahn/1126661761

AALF is maintained by a number of professional academics and scholars, including Paul Lai (pylduck@gmail.com), who is the social media liaison, expert, and active reviewer/ poster. Current, active as well previous reviewers have included (but are not necessarily limited to):

Sue J. Kim, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Jennifer Ann Ho, Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill
Betsy Huang, Associate Professor, Clark University
Nadeen Kharputly, PhD, UC San Diego, Lecturer, Ethnic Studies
Annabeth Leow, Coterminal MA Student, Stanford University

Kai Hang Cheang, PhD Candidate, UC Riverside

Heejoo Park, PhD Student, UC Riverside

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